Stranded Colorwork Tips and Tricks

 

It's that time of year where Stockings are popular to craft. Made in a wealth of colors, you can get a personalized stocking with some color-work techniques and a little bit of patience.

Since there is a little bit of a learning curve to stranded color-work, we thought we might try and give you some tips and tricks to help your project go a bit smoother. Whether you are a newcomer to color work or are more seasoned, we hope these 5 tips will help you out!

Tip #1: Use bobbins!

Bobbins come in all shapes and sizes, from small plastic squares with openings (traditionally used for embroidery), to plastic bobbins made specifically with knitting and crocheting in mind. You can even make your own bobbins with a bit of cardboard on your own!

The concept is the same for any type of bobbins you use; you wind your bobbin full of yarn (one bobbin for each color) and knit, keeping the yarn coming from the bobbin to the project as short as you are able to. This way you aren't twisting yarns as you change colors and having to untangle a mess after a few rows. When winding your bobbins, try to get as much yarn as possible on them, so that you have less ends to weave in when the project is done.

The above picture shows the type of bobbins we carry at The Nook. Just flip it up to load the yarn, and back down after it is loaded. They lock the yarn in place until you are ready to pull the yarn out intentionally, so they won't unwind in the middle of your work. We have worked with many types of bobbins and absolutely love these for those reasons.

Tip #2: Lock your stitches

When you are working a long portion of one color, you need to make sure that the floats in the back for the other color are not terribly long. If they are too long they can wreak havoc in a project; the stitches can come out messy, and you can get your fingers caught in those nice mitts or accidentally pull those floats while doing laundry.

We recommend you "lock" your stitches after every fourth stitch. To lock them, you simply twist your two colors together by placing the color you are not working with on top of the color you are working with and then back around to the bottom and right. You will essentially be twisting the color you are not working with counterclockwise around the current color.

Tip #3: Make your floats the right size

This can be a bit tricky, but is absolutely key for creating a neat and tidy color work project. If you are following tip #2, and locking your stitches every 4th stitch, you will be pretty well off. However, you still need to make sure you are not pulling your floats too tight, or letting them be too loose. If they are too tight, your work will start to pucker. If they are too loose, your stitches will begin to look sloppy.

The way we recommend you create the right size float is to stretch your last 4 stitches out on the right needle before you knit your next stitch. You can use your right index finger to hold them in a stretched out position as you knit or purl your next stitch. Then, when your next stitch has been made, snug the float up a little bit if it is too loose. The effect you are going for is being able to have all of your stitches spread out just a little on the needles without having a loose strand in the back.

Tip #4: Make sure your colors contrast well

This tip comes from a couple of the wonderful gals from our Tuesday knit night group, who are pros at choosing contrasting colors,  and it is genius. If you are in doubt to whether or not your colors will contrast well, take a picture. Not just any picture, though. Take this picture in black and white. If you can't tell the difference between the colors in a black and white photo, the colors might be too close in hue to really pop on a project.

As you can see with the picture above, there is a slightly different colored triangle in the center. The difference in the black and white picture does not have to be a huge to work. The picture above is not an ideal difference, however you can see a slight difference. If you can't tell the difference in contrast at all, you definitely want to replace one of the colors. 

If you have already bought the yarn for the project, try this with a swatch. If you are browsing the yarn store you can put the two next to each other and snap that pic. If you are shopping online, try saving the photo of the colors to a collage or photo editor program on your computer and change the effect to black and white.

 Tip #5: Learn to knit the "other way"

Whether you are a picker (continental) or a thrower (English), it is really beneficial to learn how to knit the "other" style. This is extremely useful for working with multiple colors in a project. A great way to learn the other style is to knit a washcloth in the flat using the style you do not normally use.

When you are doing color-work and know how to knit both styles you can hold two colors in your hands (one in your left and one in your right) you then throw one color over using the English method, and pick the other color using the Continental method. It creates a smoother transition between colors and you don't have to continually drop and pick up colors. Just be sure that your tension is close to the same both ways.

We hope this helps you out with some of the tricky bits of doing fair isle or intarsia color work. We are always available at the shop to help you out if you get stuck. Happy crafting fiber buddies!

Do you have any tips and tips for color work? Let us know in the comments!